The Adventures of Kathlyn eBook

If only she were on pleasure bent! If only she
knew some one in this great teeming city! She
knew no one; she carried no letters of introduction,
no letters of credit, nothing but the gold and notes
the paymaster at the farm had hastily turned over
to her. Only by constant application to maps
and guide books had she managed to arrange the short
cut to the far kingdom. She had been warned that
it was a wild and turbulent place, out of the beaten
path, beyond the reach of iron rails. Three
long sea voyages: across the Pacific (which wasn’t),
down the bitter Yellow Sea, up the blue Bay of Bengal,
with many a sea change and many a strange picture.
What though her heart ached, it was impossible that
her young eyes should not absorb all she saw and marvel
over it. India!

The strange elusive Hindu had disappeared after Hongkong.
That was a weight off her soul. She was now
assured that her imagination had beguiled her.
How should he know anything about her? What
was more natural than that he should wish to hurry
back to his native state? She was not the only
one in a hurry. And there were Hindus of all
castes on all three ships. By now she had almost
forgot him.

There was one bright recollection to break the unending
loneliness. Coming down from Hongkong to Singapore
she had met at the captain’s table a young man
by the name of Bruce. He was a quiet, rather
untalkative man, lean and sinewy, sun and wind bitten.
Kathlyn had as yet had no sentimental affairs.
Absorbed in her work, her father and the care of
Winnie, such young men as she had met had scarcely
interested her. She had only tolerated contempt
for idlers, and these young men had belonged to that
category. Bruce caught her interest in the very
fact that he had but little to say and said that crisply
and well. There was something authoritative
in the shape of his mouth and the steadiness of his
eye, though before her he never exercised this power.
A dozen times she had been on the point of taking
him into her confidence, but the irony of fate had
always firmly closed her lips.

And now, waiting for the ship to warp into its pier,
she realized what a fatal mistake her reticence had
been. A friend of her father!

Bruce had left the Lloyder before dinner (at Singapore),
and as Kathlyn’s British-India coaster did not
leave till morning she had elected to remain over
night on the German boat.

As Bruce disappeared among the disembarking passengers
and climbed into a rickshaw she turned to the captain,
who stood beside her.

“Do you know Mr. Bruce?”

“Very well,” said the German. “Didn’t
he tell you who he is? No? Ach!
Why, Mr. Bruce is a great hunter. He has shot
everything, written books, climbed the Himalayas.
Only last year he brought me the sack of a musk deer,
and that is the most dangerous of all sports.
He collects animals.”

Then Kathlyn knew. The name had been vaguely
familiar, but the young man’s reticence had
given her no opportunity to dig into her recollection.
Bruce! How many times her father had spoken
of him! What a fool she had been! Bruce
knew the country she was going to, perhaps as well
as her father; and he could have simplified her journey
to the last word. Well, what was done could not
be recalled and done over.